


heaven help the fool

by BucketofWater



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drug Use, M/M, Miscommunication, Theo Decker should be considered his own warning, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-11-23 21:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20896358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BucketofWater/pseuds/BucketofWater
Summary: He knew why. He wished that he did not but deep down he knew. They both did, at one point or another. Maybe not in words, but it was between them all the same. The way that they knew that the sky was blue and how the sun-warmed sand burned like fire. Theo loved Boris and perhaps, although he was a fool to believe it, maybe Boris loved him a little bit too.Alternatively: the soulmate au in which every significant person in your life leaves a smudge of colour on you.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! So The Goldfinch, huh? I have never read a book so quickly in my life, I don't think one has had me hooked as hard. 
> 
> The only thing I am capable of writing is gratuitous miscommunication and soulmate aus, so I apologise in advance. 
> 
> Basically, the premise is that one tumblr-post about a soulmate au in which every important person in your life leaves a colour on you when you share a meaningful touch; the stronger the bond the deeper the colour.

Theo had never been very good at making first impressions. Even as a very small child he had struggled to leave a mark of much significance on anyone. It had been disheartening, at first, back when he cared. The value of a person was measured on their colours, most of the time; how many friends did they have painted across their arms? Did that person have the vivid splash of a lover flush against their skin?   
  
It was common that when you met someone of some significance in your life, a friend or colleague, a future lover or perhaps even a bitter rival, that at the first meaningful point of contact they would leave an impression of their touch on you. A hand in your own after a terse handshake, a press of lips against a jawline or a cheek or forehead (they were the most embarrassing marks, often left by mothers or bustling aunts.)   
  
Yet Theo had found it a great difficulty to get himself to rub off on anyone in quite a fashion. His colour was strange, a fleck of gold that had the potential to look brassy and dull when the light was too dim. It was the colour that was stained against the fingers of his mother’s right hand, conflicting with the tan of her skin and the silver of her jewellery; gold had never been her colour. 

\-----

“I’m glad.” Hobie said, after a moment of tense silence between them that had only been occupied by the crunch of Theo’s toast. “They say that sometimes it’s harder for children to bond after trauma. Some kids never do it ever again, and I had been so worried.”  
  
Theo knew he meant well, the concerned crease that nestled in the slant of his forehead, the pout of his frown. Still, in that moment it felt very much like he was back in one of his countless therapy sessions; the vacant and infuriatingly gentle voices attempting to entice some sort of response from him that he was incapable of providing. Words wrapped in bubble-wrap and whispered as if to avoid startling him, as if anything really _ could _ startle him again.  
  
_‘It might be hard to bond in the future, so you’ll have to work extra hard at it - okay, buddy?’ _  
  
It had not seemed relevant at the time, to point out that he had never been remarkably good at bonding to begin with, that the concept now seemed utterly impossible to him. The first mark he ever received had not taken to him until he was three weeks old, the rosy-pink impression of his mother’s palm against his ribs, where she had placed it blow a raspberry against the pudge of his stomach. It was the same colour as the silk scarf she wore that morning, wispy and soft and probably burned to nothing but ash.   
  
His father had never left a mark on him, not for lack of trying in his youth, but apparently the man’s dark green hue never took to him. It was hardly impressed on his mother, only a subdued swab of a thumb across her cheekbone. A mark easily concealed by makeup but often left on show, even after the man has up and left them both destitute.  
  
He does not know why he tells Hobie, only that he does, and that the older man makes an oddly sorrowful noise in the back of his throat.   
  
“Pippa always took them so well.” He said, softly, subdued. “Her arms are like a canvass, it’s ridiculous. She would always grab her classmates and strangers on the streets. Welty used to tell her to save some skin, even a bit, for when she was older. But the future never concerned her at all, and before we knew it she was awash with so many colours we couldn’t keep track of who's mark was whose. She knows, though - she…” He tapered off, took a long sullen sip of his tea. “ She remembered them all.”

\-----

Xandra made an ordeal about avoiding him. Initially he had thought that she had some concept about kids being unclean, clingy or bratty. He had been tempted to dismiss that by explaining, simply, that nothing he did would be quite as trashy as the luminous orange fake-tan that culminated in her palms. However, he was quick to realise that she was more afraid of any physical contact; she was content to speak with him, sometimes, when it was on simple topics of school and what he liked to eat (food, usually: ‘funny. Do you want some pizza or not?’)  
  
She did not want to mark him, and in turn Theo did not find the thought of her marking him too appealing. It would have concerned him, even, had he thought that there was any chance that she may leave a smear of her gaudy sun-kissed orange smudge on him, as it was plastered haphazardly in the shape of her full lips against his father’s jaw.   
  
Even before the trauma she would not have marked him, Theo knows.   
  
Yet some days he will find her mid-reach to him, to lay a palm on his shoulder or to ruffle his hair in her sleep addled (and later, he learned, post-coked-out) haze, only to withdraw her hand as if his very presence seared her skin worse than the heat of the desert.   
  
She was afraid to mark him. She was afraid that she would not mark him.  
  
So they danced about one another, always cautious, never brushing skin, always wondering whether there would be a chance. 

\----- 

Theo didn’t want colours anymore. When he was younger he had yearned for them, as it was natural to do for any kid his age. Comparing their marks in the schoolyard had been just as common a pastime as trading Pokemon cards or discussing the late-night cartoons on Nickelodeon from the night before.   
  
It was different now though. He had the mark of his mother, soft and ticklish to touch, just over his ribs. It left a sour twist in his mouth, the stench of ash and the encompassing smother of smoke, the distant ring of a fire-engine, which he thought was just a bitter memory but was actually his un-diagnosed tinnitus. Then, an emerald green against the back of his hand, dark and bright (was it bright enough? He worried that it was not, but it _ had _ to be) was the palm of Pippa’s hand on his. The squeeze of Hobie’s thick workman’s fingers on his shoulder, stark like a bruise against his freckled skin. Then there was Andy’s nervous beige dusted across his knuckles, where they had awkwardly brushed hands when switching pencils in one of their very first math lessons all those years ago; Kitsey’s rouge fingertips just above his right elbow, where she had shoved him out of her way when they were young children together, darker than her touch had any right to be on his skin; the ghost of Mrs. Barbour’s fingers in his hair, across his scalp, a pinch from Tom Cable, dark like a bruise on his thigh.   
  
Yes, he was convinced, Theo had all the marks he would ever need.   
  
Then, he had met Boris, and he was not quite so certain anymore.  
  
He had never, _ never, _ met someone quite so interesting, a person with so much to say. Even at the time the adults he had met seemed to come up short in comparison. How could one person have experienced so much? In the time it had taken Theo to be a crushing disappointment to several people, commit what was likely considered an act of domestic terrorism (it was more-so trafficking, but back then he thought that only ever applied to drugs and girls) it seemed that this boy had achieved an awful lot more.   
  
The urge that struck him, deep and floundering in his gut, - equal parts nerves and enthusiasm, like hanging for that brief, infinite second on the precipice of a roller coaster, right before the drop - the inlaid desire for this person to make more of an impression on him. Something physical, something tangible, something forever.  
  
Boris, however, seemed less enthused with the idea. He was willingly tactile with when there were layers between them, shirts and coats and tugging at the edge of his clothes, always ‘_come, Potter!’ _ but there was never a moment where he would allow his palm to graze his skin.   
  
Maybe it was different in Russia. Or the Ukraine, or Indonesia or Canada or Mexico or Timbuk-fucking-tu.   
  
“Did you just throw darts at a goddamn globe?” Theo had asked, once, depressed by too many beers and giddy with whatever pills Boris had conjured for them.   
  
Boris blinked at him, dark hair falling over his large eyes. The quirk of his mouth revealed his grey, brittle teeth, and he laughed for a long moment before shrugging entirely dismissively: “You make no fucking sense.”

\----- 

“No way!” Boris snorted, abrupt and too-loud in the general lull of the kitchen. It could have been any time at all in that moment, a gritty grey haze of perpetual blackness smothering the desert like a shroud. Pinpricks of lights in the sky above, potentially stars but most likely jets. Theo would hazard a guess that it was eleven, but the vodka was flowing and it could just have easily been five-am the next morning.   
  
“Yes.” Theo said firmly. “He told him to fuck off, right in the middle of the living room.”   
  
He was accounting yet another story of his time with the Barbours, namely Pratt’s infuriated teenage rebellion and animosity towards his parents. Which upon reflection was highly amusing, especially to Boris, who seemed to regard the people of his past with a sort of juvenile curiosity; a vague acknowledgement that these people _ did _ exist, but unwilling to consider them truly real. Pratt the dragon, Kitsey the unicorn, Andy the… asthmatic? Anaemic? Never mind.   
  
“My dad would kill me.” Boris smirked, as if the thought of that frighteningly real possibility was even remotely amusing. At the words Theo felt his stomach lurch, twist with a bitter sinking fear. Would? Could? Same difference, really.   
  
Theo’s face must have twisted in some betrayal of his wandering thoughts because Boris took the momentary silence as an opportunity to snatch the tube of Pringles from Theo, snaking his too-thin hand into the tube.   
  
“Is better here with me, yes?” He asked, once he had finished stuffing entirely too many of the crisps into his mouth and scarcely taking a moment to chew.   
  
“I-” Theo paused, a warm pulse of his heart - “Yeah, I guess.”   
  
It was an almost confession. In the darkness of the desert it felt almost too easy to allow yourself to say things. Things that perhaps should be left unsaid, things that should be left undone. Lingering touches beneath the covers and hot breaths that were absorbed into the stifling atmosphere. Certainly nothing that he would commit to in the light of day, piercing heat and blinding sun, like an interrogator's light from their old crime flicks. But the shroud of the midnight evening was different. No wonder Vegas was so enticing to sinners and gamblers and rogues. It almost felt as if dawn would never come on some nights, just them both and their dog and their drink, until morning came rising blinding and brilliant over the horizon. A life without consequences.   
  
Theo felt that then, watching Boris gobble Pringles like a man starved: like himself. He would have been perfectly content if that summer evening had stretched on forever, the rambling chatter endless and the flow of vodka and snack foods limitless. Popper snoozing on the sofa and some Pixar film blaring from the television.   
  
“I wish you had lived in New York.” Theo mumbled. A wish that was strikingly common, musing about what his life would have been if he had had Boris back then. Would his mother have died at all? Probably not, he thinks. He would have been kicked out of school for smoking or drinking or bumping something in the boys bathrooms months before that day with Cable. He would have been a crackhead at twelve, but at least his mother would be alive.   
  
“_Gah, _that shithole?” Boris reached out to smack a hand roughly against his cheek, and for a moment Theo choked on his breath in his throat, his heart beating a rapid mantra against his chest. Only Boris caught himself, abruptly, thoughtless and slow with their weed, and instead shoved his shoulder hard, over the cover of his jumper. “I would never. What is there in New York? Rats? Homeless?”  
  
“We had stuff!” Theo protested, drawing a blank towards anything that would have impressed Boris. Goldie, maybe, and the other guys that tended the front of their apartments.   
  
“Muggings!” Boris said, laughing delightedly as Theo groaned a feeble protest. They _did _ have an awful lot of those, but then again, so did Vegas.   
  
Something in the light of the overheads caught Boris then, bright and radiant and entirely pallid. Like the cascade of the moon over something marble. Despite his flushed skin and tatted, unwashed hair, the bruises of purple beneath his eye and the cherry-red welt puffing up his bottom lip. Theo stared for a long moment, uncomprehending of just what he was thinking and simultaneously terribly familiar with the urge. The childish desire to have something, the urge to reach out and to possess something (‘do you want to be my friend?’ he heard a distinctly younger version of himself say.)  
  
Instead, sucking the neck of their vodka bottle for a long moment, he swallowed. “Can I touch you?”  
  
Boris startled immediately, dark eyes widening by a margin, before recovering with an entirely pretentious laugh. “You touch all the time. In case you have not noticed, but you are cuddle-monkey in bed-”  
  
“Spider-Monkey.” Theo interrupted, and then, grumbling: “You know what I mean.”   
  
“I do.” Boris relented. Still, he made no movement to close the space between them, a castaway in his halo of light in the middle of the kitchen. Socked feet sliding awkwardly on the tile.   
  
“And if it does not work?” Boris asked, shrugging one shoulder in a way that would be dismissive if Theo did not know him so well. If he had not seen the same movement a few times before, often when discussing his dad; a shrug of feigned nonchalance: who cares? It asked. Each time Theo was tempted to snap back: obviously you.   
  
“Do you think it won’t?” Theo bit back, attempting to raise an eyebrow inquisitively but knowing that he was likely just scrunching his forehead in concentration.   
  
“I mean…” The following shrug was significantly more genuine, as if shedding a world of weight. “It has not before. We touch and we hit and it has never made a difference. You have what, five colours? Six?”  
  
Theo opened his mouth to retort, feeling for a moment incredibly vulnerable, tethered to his chair and watched by some calculating predator. He knew Boris had more marks, an intense hue of colours splattered across him like a rowdy artist, nothing strikingly bright enough to be a love, but some of them dark all the same.   
  
“If you don’t want to do it just say so” Theo snapped then, feeling exposed and raw, like submerging himself in their too-hot pool with a grazed knee, the bitter sting, the painful twinge.   
  
Boris’ dark eyes flared, his mouth hanging agape for a moment. “I did not say no.”  
  
Within moments Boris had cleared the modest space between them, any apprehensions gone and only a determined frown left to mar his expression. The downward slope of his brow, the pin-prick focus of his gaze that was likely the drugs but potentially something else entirely.   
  
Boris stooped low ahead of Theo, bending so that their faces were level and breaths away. His large hands floundered uselessly in the air between them, and when someone asks Theo when it was that he first noticed that other people can have an intense heat, something stifling that makes you hyper aware? He will say that it was that moment that gave him that wisdom.   
  
Then there was a heat, the warm press of a palm against his cheek, cupping his jaw. Boris’ hand sweat damp and clammy, and the thumb pressed sharply into the cut of his cheekbone. It was intense, and terribly awkward, staring into one another's eyes at such a proximity. Reminiscent of snippets of distorted memories in their bed, pressed flush and breathless, wrung with laughter and hushing, Boris hands and mouth on him and never leaving a mark.  
  
Theo’s stomach gave a downy swoop, a dreadful lurch of nervous energy that curled like a frustrated animal in his gut. He wants- he wanted… what, exactly? He did not know. Boris? That was not enough - not an answer, he already had Boris, as much of him as possible, more than anyone else, possibly _ ever _ at that moment in time, and still it did not feel enough.   
  
Before he could process it the heat was gone, and Boris had drawn away. Pale faced, dark brows drawn down over his tired eyes. The pout of his lip accented by the bruising welt.  
  
“Do not take it personally.” He said, and Theo trembled with his sigh.   
  
“It’s okay.” He said, knowing entirely that it was not. His most blatant lie to date.  
  
“No!” Boris barked, suddenly flush with anger and fist balled at his side. Frothing with rage enough for the both of them. “It is not. It is not ‘okay’. Who decides this shit? Whoever it is he is wrong, this is, this is not okay-” his palm thrown out between them, decidedly pale and entirely blank of any colours at all- “it is all wrong. We don’t need that shit, we _ know _, what else do we need? We already know, that is enough. No one can say we are not right, who will stop us?”  
  
‘I don’t know what you mean’ Is what Theo had wanted to say, because Boris’ ranting was bordering on deranged and downright hysterical. But he did know what he meant, intimately well. He knew exactly the bright streak of colour he was expecting to be left with, something intense enough to describe the burning he felt when he was with Boris. It was almost unfathomable, it would have to be a supernova intensity, brighter even than perhaps Pippa’s palm on his own.  
  
And instead? They had nothing.   
  
One of those days Theo was going to have to learn to stop expecting anything from the world.

\----- 

“_ Shhh. Potter.”_  
  
A distinct pain; the breathless adrenaline of urgency and nowhere to be. Theo woke most nights with that excruciating fear, the mounting panic bundling in his chest like a smother, a funeral shroud, like plumes of smoke filling his lungs and ash suffocating his tongue. There is always the crashing _ thump! _ of reality, as if he is bodily thrown from his dream into the present, as if the dream was the truth and the painful, bleary, splitting-headache ridden consciousness was the nightmare.   
  
“Breathe. In and out. At least now you are not snoring, always like Popchyk.”   
  
Almost a nightmare, Theo decided.   
  
The words were not heard so much as felt, voice laced with sleepy grog, weighed down by vodka and beer and exhaustion. But the press of lips against his nape was present, tickling the downy hair and causing heat to ripple across his skin like a current. Across his stomach Boris’ arm tightened with a tug, firm and warm and encompassing.   
  
In the darkness the room is endless cascading shadow, mounds and shapes of things that are not truly there, a hunched figure in the corner, a distorted shadow on the ceiling. In a piercing red the alarm read three-forty-five. Usually his vision is blurred by more than his shoddy eyesight, his cheeks damp and warm and burning, unshed tears welling up and stinging his eyes.   
  
“This one was not good, huh?” Boris murmured again, after a steady pause in which Theo had assumed him back to sleep. He was curled around him, bracketing him in (‘_you can be big spoon when you are tallest, tak?’)_  
  
Theo heaved a shaky breath into the tepid night; answer enough.   
  
“Something about Voldemort, I think. And saving the world?”  
  
“Boris. Shut the _Fuck._ _Up._” Theo punctuated the words with a sharp elbow, jabbing backwards against the mound of sheets and earning a satisfying gasp of pain from the boy behind him. 

\----- 

Boris was usually the first up. It was as much a part of their routine as Theo doing the cooking, Boris the tidying, both of them cleaning the pool. Boris was the early riser while Theo mooched in the residual warmth of the blankets in the humid Vegas morning. The smell of cheap soap and the burn of alcohol, the cologne that they had stolen from the kiosk at the mall.   
  
Theo could hear him, tromping about barefoot in the bathroom, the smack of the tile. He did not realise that he was waiting for the rushing running of the faucet until the sound did not begin, only a perpetual dragging silence.   
  
Mounting with worry Theo cracked one eye open and grimaced against the acrid burn of pain that pulsed in his temple: “Boris?”   
  
Silence ensued. Not even the gentle padding of his feet. Theo would have written him off as dead if not for the frantic, heavy breathing that he could distinctly hear, like when they got themselves worked up ragged when delirious and clouded by smoke.   
  
“Boris I swear to God if you’re about to throw up you better do it in the toilet this time. We don’t have any disinfectant left and I’m not about to go out on a Saturday to buy some-”  
  
Footsteps, hurried and heavy. Then Boris, a pale blur of skin and black hair, head downcast as he sped out of the bathroom and into the hallway, slamming the door behind him. Not a moment's pause, Theo heard his heavy footed descent of the staircase and the rattling slam of the front door that seemed to shake the very interior of the house, but especially loud from Theo’s bedroom. Theo was almost convinced that he hallucinated the entire event, if not for Popper screeching up a storm of excited yapping at the strange display.   
  
Reaching out with a clammy hand Theo pet his soft head absently, staring entirely hollow at the opalescent gloss of his door. 

\----- 

Boris didn’t come back that day, or the one after.   
  
It was strange, Theo reasoned to Xandra, who disinterestedly stirred her coffee with a stained teaspoon. They had burgers in the freezer, Boris knew they did. He was there when they stol-bought them, (Xandra’s raised eyebrow, Theos’ adolescent voice cracking embarrassingly) and he would never just miss out on having a burger. It was the American Dream, he had declared only yesterday, to have a burger and to drink a Pepsi was the very pinnacle of capitalism and he wouldn’t miss it for the world.  
  
Except now he _ was _ missing it. Theo’s gut churned nervously, anxiety a bubble that swelled and ebbed and pressed against his ribs painfully.   
  
Part of him was tempted to walk the length of barren streets, derelict buildings and sandy ruins to his house, to rap on the door until he got over his shit and continued giving Theo something to do in the frankly miserable post-apocalyptic ruins of the desert. But there was the possibility that Mister. Pavlikovsky would answer, that he was the reason Boris had vanished in such a distressed flurry in the first place. Sure, his father had liked him at the time, had touched him with what could be considered fondness, but that was then, and Theo is intimately aware of how fickle the tempers of fathers can be.  
  
It was better not to risk it, even if his anxiety roiled and his heart stuttered painfully.   
  
Boris would come back eventually. 

\----- 

“Boris.” Theo stammered, mouth hanging agape and breath wrenched from his lungs like he had been struck. “What the fuck, dude?”  
  
It had been days, agonising days of pacing and fretting, of biting his fingernails to bloody stumps and walking Popper until his chunky little legs wouldn’t carry him any further in the sandy plains. Days without Boris. Days without even a word. Some of the most impossibly long days of his life. The thought that he could go so long without Boris, after having had so much of him for so long was surreal and jarring and awakening some distinct, terrible part of what was apparently his separation anxiety but at the time felt like need and desperation.   
  
“I know!” Boris grinned, dark teeth for a moment seeming impossibly bright in contrast to the stark colour on his lips.  
  
He had shown up nonchalantly, had not even knocked, just wandered through the front door and let himself out the patio to where Theo had been trailing his leg dejectedly in the too-warm pool. The stench of chlorine and stale sand, heat and beer.   
  
The sight of a gold smudge around Boris’ mouth was distinctly painful. The prick of fear-pain-panic when you swallow too much food and for that impossibly long moment, in which time stands still and tears well in your eyes, where you think you may be choking. The heave of your lungs for air that it cannot reach; _ no no no, it can’t happen like this! _  
  
Boris was grinning, pallid cheeks stretched and accenting the dark bruises beneath his eyes. His hair was washed, surprisingly, and sticking with sweat to his forehead. His skin was noticeably damp. Either he had sprinted to their (Theo’s) home like a madman, or he had been using something stronger than the pair of them had yet to touch together.   
  
“Oh, this?” Boris threw up a hand, bracelets sliding down the skinny arm. “I got it yesterday. Nothing too fancy.” He smirked, voice dragging with irony.   
  
Theo huffed, opened his mouth and then clamped it shut with a sneer.   
  
It was truly one of the brightest soulmarks he had ever seen. Wreathed gold, like the halo of an angel or the delicate filigree gold-resin they used to patch broken antiques in China. On anyone else it may have looked gaudy, especially plastered over their mouth, but on Boris it seemed almost right. The golden lips of a saint, the jubilant smile of some broken thing being mended.  
  
It had to be a soulmate; more than platonic, more than a friend. It was radiant.   
  
“Fuck you.” Theo said, without processing. When Boris blinked dumbly he powered on, splashing his leg childishly in the pool. “You didn’t even tell me.”

“I am telling now!” Boris laughed and Theo hated him, could not stand to look at him. That he could never look at him again without seeing that colour on him, that claim from another who was always going to be more valuable. Antique gold so much like Theo’s own colour but evidently not. An eternal what if?   
  
“So.” He began, settling on the sun-warmed tiles. “Do you remember Kotku?” 

\----- 

Kotku had not been a person to him two days before. It is surreal to him still how someone who had not existed only a few days ago could proceed to entirely uproot his life. A stranger planting a bomb, a stranger finally making contact with his father, a stranger pulling a young Boris into some dark alley (_ hey kid, wanna buy some drugs?) _and now? A stranger, who was actually Kotku, planting a heated, sloppy kiss against Boris’ mouth and ending up his soulmate in the process.   
  
She always wore dark lipstick. Black lips and black eyes, dark mascara and what-the-fuck else she smeared across her face. In truth you could not see anything, any blemishes or freckles or pimples or personality hidden beneath a smear of falsehood.  
  
She had his mark too, Boris reassured, beneath all the paint.   
  
It took a lot out of Theo, not to stare as they shared drinks, to wait for the smudge of the bottle to reveal some of what had to be a striking red print against her mouth. However, she was meticulous with her appearance, carrying a small pocket-mirror and a golden tube of lipstick to constantly reapply.   
  
In the several weeks she haunted him, _ them, _he never once saw a smudge of Boris’ mark on her mouth, but decided that it had to be there somewhere. He did not question why it made him impossibly upset, the thought that someone would cover something like that up. The most blatant glimpse, the purest, most coveted love one could achieve? And she was concealing it beneath twenty dollar foundation.   
  
“Does it not annoy you?” Theo had snapped once, over chocolates and cheap convenience store beers.   
  
“What?” Boris slurred. Mouth golden, pursed lips still wrapped around his drink.   
  
“Kotku! She never shows your mark, like, ever. Does that not upset you?” Theo felt that he was missing something. Maybe it was another cultural difference.   
  
“Oh, Potter.” Boris said, laughing. “You are still thinking about that? To answer you: no, it does not upset me - why should it? I know that it is there. That is enough, no? Everyone else knows it is there. We are not married - yet - why should it be a deal?”  
  
‘_Yet’ _ Theo mouthed, scowling, and Boris kicked his knee with a bare foot, attempting to wiggle his toes against the sensitive skin there.   
  
“Yet.” Boris dragged the word out, a slow Outback drawl. “And you will be wedding planner, for sure! So much worry and whining, we will have the biggest, grandest ceremony. You are such a girl - no, don’t kick! You _ are. _”

\----- 

It wasn’t fair. Nothing was fair anymore.  
  
Theo had tried so hard, staring vacant and void and hurting in those therapy sessions, to wrap himself in a shroud of tepid indifference. Not allowing himself to make any reasonable attachments - what was the point of it? Everyone always left him. Sometimes it was significant, and poetic; a shared meal with Hobie, an acknowledgement of their final dinner together in the biblical presence of the Ark and its animals. But mostly it was cruel and unfair, and decidedly unexpected. His mother torn from life, wrong place, wrong time. Pippa leaving to Texas without even the slightest promise of return. His father - both times - barrelling away in his car into some unknown future. This time it was with an air of finality that pierced Theo with some solemn dread.   
  
Perhaps it was worse this time. Sure, he would no longer tense at every creak on the staircase, every twist of the door handle. No longer was it the possibility of his father slinking home. No more dreadful wondering and crushing disappointment. Only this time it truly was _ nothing. _No more anything. No more father. Theo was actually an orphan now.   
  
So his goodbyes were always terrible, thoughtless.  
  
Boris’ was just the same. The tender press of lips, the rasping heat between them, the promise to follow that Theo knew, deep in his raging heart, that neither of them believed.   
  
No, Theo decided dejectedly, stooped in the worn seat of the taxi, Boris would not follow. Why would he? What did Theo have to give him? He already had his money and he already had his soulmate  
  
A shock of ice pierced him then, like a needle in his heart, sharp and terrible. Jerking up in his seat enough to startle Popchyk. He leered out of the tinted glass of the window. Beyond, in the darkness, the lights roved by in snippets of wonderful blurred colour, fantastic and enticing in the expansive desert. His reflection stared back at him, looking decidedly small and tired, dark impressions of sleep deprivation bruising his eyes.   
  
Theo did not look at his eyes, he stared intently at the shape of his lips: normal still, just the downward frown.  
  
He had thought… what, exactly? That something about this kiss had been different?   
  
It had been, some traitorous part of his mind argued, in the recess of his reasonable thought. Theo squashed the niggling idea before it could fester into something that would cause his heart to hurt even more.   
  
Maybe everything he thought was between them was exaggerated. Maybe Theo was just some weird kid who trailed around behind Boris and leeched his drugs, gave him a place to hang out and didn’t kick up too much fuss when Boris nonchalantly stole from right under his nose; alcohol and money and jewellery and fuck-knows what else.   
  
A prickle of heat against his eyes, suddenly damp and blurred behind his glasses. Theo sniffed and scrubbed angrily at his nose, ignoring the burn.  
  
Of every lie that Theo had convinced himself of; that the theft had only good intentions, that perhaps every bad thing was not his fault and was not deserved, he believes that this may have been the most cruel: convincing himself that they might have been.

\----- 

It is a week after Pippa returned to school (for that is how time was measured, in Theo’s mundane world of work and study, the time in which Pippa had been gone and the time it would take her to return again) that Hobie tells him he needs a haircut. He knows that he looked unkempt, like a feral child raised by wolves, his skin blotchy and broken out. Stubble beginning a valiant attempt to sprout against his jawline.  
  
On a particularly normal Thursday afternoon he walked himself to the barbers. Not the same one he used to visit, when his mother would take him there and wait in the plush lounge for him to be done. Instead he visited a Turkish Barber that was suitably close and that Hobie had recommended. He didn’t concern himself with styles or making a particular impression, especially since Pippa wasn’t around anymore, what was the point? With a close-cropped cut and his wallet relieved of ten dollars Theo began his trek home, surprised at how cruelly the autumn chill nipped at the freshly exposed skin of his neck. It was strange; a lighter head, a colder nape, probably saved him some shampoo money at the end of the day, though. 

That was the final thought he would have given the haircut, had Hobie not stopped him the second he walked into the workshop to begin sweeping sawdust on the floor into a uniform line.   
  
“Well, would you look at that!” Hobie said, voice ringing loud and gentle, like a silver bell. “Who's the girl, then?”  
  
Theo blinked at him, slowly at first, wondering whether he had misheard. Then, when his brain could not interpret the words in any other way he risked a furtive glance over his shoulder, towards the staircase, just in case a strange girl _ had _ followed him home without his noticing the interloper.   
  
To his relative discomfort Hobie only laughed, a full-belly laugh that was often reserved for when Popcyk had silly dreams or when Pippa decided to tell one of her strange European jokes that were often painfully dull.   
  
“Your mark?” Hobie pressed, raising one of his large calloused hands to rest against his own neck. Theo mimicked the movement, swiping his hand against his own nape before glancing at his fingers (blank) to see if he was mistaken. Mark? Theo didn’t have any marks there-  
  
“Oh.” He said.  
  
“Oh indeed.” Hobie chuckled. “How could you forget about _ that _? Almost blinded me!”  
  
Echoing laughter chased him up the staircase, barrelling into the first bathroom he could find (the guest room connected to the store, grimy and laden with cobwebs and fat spiders.) In the cruel intensity of the white light Theo stared at himself in the mirror. Still gaunt, skin still tinged pink from the exertion of his mad-marathon scramble up the stairs. His hair was different, still an initial shock that drew his eyes. Then, gaze trailing down, he thought at first he was bleeding: the skin against the back of his neck, just below the hairline, flushed with a bright red welt.  
  
Theo swiped his thumb over the colour, heart thudding in his throat, veins pulsing with fear, adrenaline, horror.  
  
He _ knew _ that colour. It was imprinted in his mind, seared against his brain.   
  
That was Boris’ red, stained against his skin in such an intensity that it almost hurt to stare. 

\----- 

**_Of course ur mark is red u fuckin’ commie bastard_  
**  
Theo had texted that night, chest rattling and his ribs aching worse than any pain he had experienced before. In the darkness of his room, staring at the message it felt both like some fabricated, terrible dream and something that happened to someone else a million years ago. A mournful pain that he had only ever heard about. 

\----- 

Boris never texted him back.   
  
It was probably for the best. Boris did nothing but cause him pain, in the end. The physical-pain, the thrown punches and bloody knuckles, tickling that got too rough and knees dug into too tender ribs. The play fighting and pinching and, god, the drugs. The eternal pain; the money sink, the crippling addiction, the fear of withdrawal and the fear of never withdrawing at all. A leering spectre of guilt and embarrassment and worst of all, the unashamed indifference of it all.   
  
Then there was the other hurt. The emotional-pain, the heart-pain, like the barrel of his chest had been carved out and replaced by dust and air and a shard of ice speared through his heart. That Boris, with his too-large teeth and his obnoxious laugh, had managed to matter to Theo, out of everyone in the world, was ridiculous. It was absurd, Boris who should mean nothing more than anyone else, nothing more than Andy or Tom Cable. How is it that he could look at Theo one day and grin, crooked teeth smeared with Nestle and in a tired voice say: “The colander is invention of capitalism.” With such sincerity that Theo almost dropped their pasta? How is it he could say that? something so stupid, so remarkably, infuriatingly stupid, and why was it that Theo’s heart would skip and his breath stick in his throat?   
  
He knew why. He wished that he did not but deep down he knew. They both did, at one point or another. Maybe not in words, but it was between them all the same. The way that they knew that the sky was blue and how the sun-warmed sand burned like fire. Theo loved Boris and perhaps, although he was a fool to believe it, maybe Boris loved him a little bit too.  
  
But now he was gone. Theo scolded himself, convinced himself that he needed to stop acting like a girl or a child. He needed to grow up, to get over it. Theo began to tell himself that he would never see Boris again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your genuinely nice comments! 
> 
> if you want to hit me up and cry about the Boys ™ I'm on tumblr over at - ereborslionheart

Late December found him once more in New York. He had spent the better part of the year travelling across America (and occasionally Canada, which was as picturesque as it was inconvenient) buying back Hobie’s designs for a premium. A good majority of his reward money had been invested in the endeavour and everything else had trickled away on necessities; his own apartment, a few investments and a couple of vets bills. He was perhaps poorer than he had been in years, but for the first time in decades he could look Hobie in the eye and be confident that he was almost morally sound. Almost someone worth being proud of.   
  
In November he had lost Jerome’s number. It had seemed insignificant at the time; he had been concerned over a coffee table and too busy drafting emails to finicky client. By the time the itch came back he couldn’t recall if the number ended with a seven or nine, and after calling both in desperation it turned out that it ended in neither. Theo had bumped about half of his medicine cabinet that night. The following week consisted of a terrible, frigid sickness spent curled on his settee, facing his mortality and for once fearing it. After that, Theo had not concerned himself much with snorting _ anything.  
  
_It is that night Theo thinks about as he makes the short walk from Hobie’s workshop back home. The darkness of the evening is clouded like a smog, the veil pierced by the illuminated white light of the street lamps above. A vast sky of stars in the city, twinkling light that was still far too high to reach.   
  
Theo had not expected much from his apartment, especially not after coming back from pulling a shift in the workshop. He expected perhaps that Popper had pissed all over the floor, as he was growing more accustomed to doing with his age. Maybe, if the desire struck him in his boredom, he had found a book or a magazine to rip to tatters so Theo had something to spend twenty minutes hoovering up.   
  
Instead he found a man slouched against the door to his building. A slumped figure with narrow shoulders beneath a large winter coat, dressed in blacks and flecked with damp crystals of snow.   
  
It’s weird, Theo thinks as his heart pulses in his throat like nausea, that someone so indistinct can be so recognisable from behind.  
  
The last time Theo had seen Boris the man was gaunt, still weary from their espionage and hurting from the gunshot that he had attempted to underplay. His skin had been chalky and grey, stretched corpse-like over sharp bones. Hollow eyes, glassy from the heroin, staring into the abyssal darkness of his apartment in Antwerp.   
  
“I don’t take guests without an appointment.” Theo said, noting the way Boris physically jerked at his voice, as if struck. The man turned to him then, and the harshness of the streetlights above was not kind. He looked worn, to put it simply. Hair frizzed and untended, eyes weighed down by the dark bruises of his sleep deprivation. The coal-dark gaze, soft and searching and far too tender as he finally looked at Theo.  
  
“So what, you are prostitute now?” Boris smirked, lips a brassy gold in the shadows. Theo stared helplessly for a moment. “I give you two-million dollars and you blow it so fast that you turn to sucking dick by appointment to make it to next day?”  
  
“Fuck off.” Theo hissed in return, squeezing passed Boris and his bulky coat and enticing heat and the smell of his cardamom cologne that had a seventy-percent chance of being a woman’s fragrance. “You know I mean the furniture.”  
  
“Of _ course.” _ Boris relented, hand-on-heart, eyebrows disappearing into his hairline, the feigned look of innocence. ( '_Me, officer? I do not know what a weed even is-’)  
  
_“You look rough.” Theo said, once he had let them both into the building and began to trail up the stairwell to his apartment. He did not beckon Boris to follow but the man did anyway, slinking behind him with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat. Always a shadow, a leering presence, forever tethered and impossible to touch.   
  
“Rough?” Boris’ laugh is a bark behind him. “I am utterly fucked. Jet-lagged, shitty airport snacks - not even an in flight meal! Cheapskate bastards. I did not even sleep, some lady had a baby with her and it would not shut up for a moment, I do not know a child who cried as much in my life-”  
  
“Why are you here, Boris?” Theo interrupts when they finally arrive at his door. In the shadow of the hallway it is so much more difficult to look directly at him. The intimate lighting, dark and warm, the casual conversation, as if they are coming home from a day at the mall in Vegas and not as if they have been apart for almost a year now, a distance and a silence that has ached and festered in Theo’s chest no matter how many drugs he pumped into himself to try and fill it.   
  
“To see you.” Boris said.   
  
“You flew here, on a December flight, to see me?” Theo snapped. Boris does not react, just continues to stare at him silently, as if waiting for him to be done so that they can… what? Go inside? “What about your family, Boris? Your wife and your kids or your girlfriends? Do you really not have anywhere else in the world to be?”  
  
It is only once the words are said, suspended in the silence of that hallway, stifling and oppressive that Theo processed the tremor of a plea in his voice. Boris must have noticed it too, or maybe he had always noticed it, long before Theo had allowed himself to pick up on it. The tiny, involuntary inflection of want.   
  
‘Tell me you don’t have anywhere else to be.’ He did not say. He did not have to. Boris heard it all the same.   
  
“Theo.” Boris dropped his gaze, briefly roving over his face, the juncture of his throat, his jaw and his mouth, before finally meeting Theo’s own eyes again. Theo feels his skin prickle with embarrassed heat, a tremble of nerves in his hand that he has not felt since he last saw Pippa.   
  
“Alright.” Theo said, finally slipping the key into the lock. “You can come in for a while.”  
  
Popper had turned slightly deaf in his age. Between the cataracts, the now severe allergies and the fact that he only had about four teeth left, he was beginning to cost a small-fortune for Theo to drag to the vets. However, when Theo finally pushes his way into the flat the dog immediately greets them with an eccentric wail of puppy-ish howling and the tip-tip-tap of claws on the wooden floor.  
  
Before Theo had time to flick on the lamp in the corner Boris had shouldered into the room, throwing himself to the ground and petting Popper, crooning at him in a voice that was terribly soft and perhaps a little bit endearing.   
  
Theo watched for a moment or two, likely for much longer than he had any right to stare. He had seen Boris swoon over dogs plenty of times, he could sketch the softness of his face when he smiled from memory, the crease beneath his eyes and the way his nose scrunched in the middle.   
  
Leaving the two to become reacquainted (it was as if Popper had forgotten that Theo existed in that moment; he would have joked that the true romance was between Boris and the dog, had he thought the comment would not salt a raw wound) Theo continued into the building and worked through his general routine. It was tedious, being an adult, living alone and bitter, flicking on the washing machine to cycle, hanging up his coat and scarf on the rack in the corner, idly fluffing the pillows on the lounge settee as if Boris would particularly care about creases.   
  
“I feel like I am dying.” Boris complains, still crumpled on the floor with Popchyk, still bundled in his coat and face flushed pink from the cold.  
  
“Stop being over dramatic.” Theo scolds, wandering into the adjoining kitchen to look for a drink all the same. He doesn’t drink much outside of coffee and alcohol, sometimes even water when he remembers that his body probably needs sustenance to survive. He finds a warm bottle of lemonade in the back of one of his cupboards, and when he wanders into the living room Boris has graduated from rolling on the floor to sitting on the sofa, small white dog tucked against his side.  
  
“I will never understand your Western sugar-water.” Boris whines, looking mournfully at the bottle of lemonade that Theo forced him to take. He held it at a distance, examining the chipper yellow label as if leering at the logo would magically transform the content to pure vodka.   
  
“When we go to Ukraine I’ll drink what the fuck ever it is that you have, then. But for now you need to ingest something, and flat lemonade is always a favourite.” Theo said, feeling entirely like a lecturing matron, an exasperated Mrs. Barbour scolding Andy for contracting yet another stomach bug. Theo watched Boris, brow creased low with frustration, stretching the nicked scar above his eyebrow, pink across pale skin. Boris twisted the cap off, hesitating at the fizz of carbonation, before raising the bottle to his mouth. Then, abruptly jerking it away from him as Theo hissed: “_ Flat. _”   
  
“It is a bottle!” Boris protested, jerking upright on the sofa and leering forward, ready for a confrontation. A spark of energy flaring in his dark eyes. “How can it be flat?”  
  
“Let the bubbles go down first. If you're actually sick and you don’t you’ll make yourself worse.” Theo pried the drink from Boris’ hand, turning to set it with a thud against the coffee table - a Burr walnut build with inlaid ebony, something striking but minimalist - before thinking better of it and placing it on one of the scattered marble coasters.   
  
“Why buy one with bubbles, then?” Boris huffed, voice a drawn out hiss. Theo knew he was looking for a rise, for something to latch onto and to pick apart. Arguing for them was as if discussing the weather with a normal person. It was even ground, to dig into a topic of conversation and verbally berate one another until they had to admit that the whole topic was just downright ridiculous and they could move onto more important things.   
  
But tonight Theo did not have the energy for pointless conversation. In the lamplight of his apartment it was too tender, too intimate, like looking at a Bruegel canvass; soft beiges and gentle tones painting across Boris’ skin, softening the harsh cut of his face into something much younger. Popper dozes by his side, Boris’ hand resting on the rising barrel of his chest, the silver of his rings tangling in the coarse fur.  
  
“Why do you keep coming back, Boris? What’s the point of all of this?” Theo was tired - ultimately exhausted. More than anything he wanted to fall into bed, to forget that Boris had decided to deign (curse?) him with his presence once more. Another fleeting moment to rekindle emotion, to spark a burning warmth in his chest before the man would disappear again. Theo was so very, very tired of it all.   
  
“You know why.” Boris said, as if it were simple.   
  
“No, I really don’t. I don’t understand any of this, I never have. What’s the point? You show up for a week every few years and for what? Because that’s my mark on your fucking face? Is it meant to make you feel better about all of the other shit you’ve done to me you sanctimonious bastard?”

“Sancti-?” Boris mouthed, forehead creased by the intensity of his scowl. “Fuck you. ‘All that other shit’? My entire life has been spent trying to make up to you. _ Everything. _”  
  
“That’s bullshit and you know it is! Your entire life? One month out of the past ten years doesn’t seem like much to me.”  
  
“I gave you two-million dollars. I got your painting back. I-”  
  
“You are never fucking there, Boris!” Theo shouted, voice ringing in the silence of their apartment. Outside the buzz of traffic continues, eternal and heady, like the cars are millions of miles away. Inside it is Theo’s ragged breathing and the distant tumble of the washing machine. “I found out I had a soulmate and you didn’t even text me back. You ran off and lived your whole life without a second goddamn thought towards me, so you can’t come slinking back here whenever you feel a little bit guilty and expect me to forgive you. Not for all of this. Not for any of it.”  
  
“Theo-” Boris starts, such raw hurt written across his face that Theo almost feels bad for interrupting him.   
  
“No. You don’t understand. Every trip to the barbers, every single time someone sees your mark on me it’s awful.” At this Theo throws a hand up to tug at the high collar of his shirt, barring turtlenecks, nothing he wore ever fully concealed the brand. “Always the same fucking question: ‘How’s the little lady?’ What am I supposed to say to that? Just shrug it off? A casual, ‘oh, I don’t know. He’s likely zoned out in a ditch somewhere or shooting up heroin in a back alley or fucking dead or in jail or, what, Boris?”   
  
Boris had opened his mouth as if intending to reply, revealing the line of his shiny new teeth, flashy and fake. Theo’s tone must have startled him, however, because he snaps his mouth closed with a resounding click.   
  
“Sometimes I wish you were dead. It would be so much easier than not knowing. Do you have any idea what it’s like? I don’t think a single day has passed by where I don’t wonder, where I don’t feel like I need to throw up because I know you’re out there somewhere, that _ anything _ could happen and I would never know? You could just disappear and I wouldn’t even find out. You’d be gone to the world but you wouldn’t be gone to me, you would never be gone to me. You’d just leave me alone here!" Theo is aware that he sounds hysterical; arms outstretched in an invitation for Boris to attempt to explain anything, a plea for him to make it all make sense.   
  
“I know.” Boris snapped, voice violent and then immediately his profile softens, his lips cringe. When he speaks it is gentle and solemn, like recalling a prayer. “I know exactly what that is like. Theo, I _ never _ thought you would make it to New York. For weeks I thought you would come back to me. I thought you would be embarrassed and I would tease you and we would go back to normal.”   
  
“I waited for so long.” Boris murmured, low into his drink, like a confession. “I waited for you to come home.”  
  
“Don’t lie, Boris_. _” Theo hisses, shoulders slumping as any anger is drained from him. It is a combination of the day, the bone deep exhaustion and the suppressing darkness of the winter night. Perhaps even Boris’ knitted brows, the puff of his mouth as he frowns, the guilt of having being the cause of that expression is surprisingly heavy. “You knew I wasn’t coming back.”  
  
“I didn’t come here to fight with you.” Boris snaps.  
  
“Sure seems like it to me.” Theo says, crossing his arms across his chest for a brief moment. The movement makes him feel small, like a child, and it is something he has to actively stop himself from doing when handling an awkward client. “Then once again, I’ll ask you: why are you here?”  
  
Boris shrugs, his lithe shoulders jumping beneath the mound of his damp coat. The snowflakes have since melted, leaving the fabric sopping and dark, and Theo mourns silently for the lambswool blanket that lines the back of the settee.   
  
“Well if you’re going to loiter you’ll have to excuse me.” Theo says, allowing the tension to ebb from his tone until they are once more bordering on terse conversation. “I’ve eaten probably two-hundred calories today and I think I might pass out soon.”   
  
“You haven’t eaten?” Boris perks up at that, dark eyes turning round like when they were younger, beacon bright with poorly veiled excitement. Boris was terrible at hiding things - or, well - Theo had always _ thought _ he was terrible at hiding things. It turns out there were a few things he was good at concealing, when it was convenient for him.   
  
“Don’t even start. I’m having lasagne.” Theo bites out just as Boris scrambles up to his feet, heeled boots clicking against the wood grain of the living room.   
  
“I saw an Indian place on the way here.” He insists, smile broad and earnest. Theo stares, eyes transfixed for a moment by the flash of gold against his pale skin, vibrant and almost royal. Had Boris been born in another time, amongst the great artists with his sullen eyes and sharp face, entirely pale bar the smudge of striking gold? He would have been the muse for so much, inspiration for so many. Theo does not realise that he has been staring for perhaps too long until Boris reaches out and gently punches his shoulder, scarcely a graze of his knuckles - likely it would have been a caress, had it not been Boris, who was incapable of being soft.   
  
When he blinks back up to meet his gaze, his eyes are creased with his smile, tender and warm and ringed with a dark, impossible brown. Theo holds his eye for a moment, a challenge or a silent conversation he will never be certain, only knowing that Boris rolls his head towards the door with the impression of a smirk and Theo sighs dejectedly.   
  
He has never been particularly good at telling Boris no.

\------

“Oh, and onion bhajis- _ ooh _, they should have poppadoms also-”  
  
Boris had spent the entire five minute walk to the take-away rattling off about food. Theo had tried to keep it brisk, ducking his head against the chill of the evening breeze and noting the way Boris had to intentionally lengthen his stride to keep up the pace, black Gucci Brogues splashing through puddles with complete disregard. Any remnants of their fight had seemingly been forgotten in favour of food; something that was entirely Boris. The man was far too forgiving, from minor sleights to major grievances, he was likely to brush off both with just as much ease, as far as Theo was concerned. For whatever reason he was an exception to Boris’ ire. Theo was entirely convinced that he could try to stab him and after the initial shock Boris would only laugh and pull him into a too-rough hug to tease him about his failed attempt on his life.   
  
Once they had ducked into the gaudy shop, glass windows accented by illuminated signs and discount posters. Theo glanced helplessly at the sprawling board of the menu on the back wall, crowned by an ink painting of the Taj Mahal, sloppy and too-rough to be stencilled.   
  
Theo had spent about three moments staring before Boris nudged him again, shoulder warm where it pressed against him and he pointedly ignored the way that Boris didn’t withdraw, instead standing at ease leaning against him.   
  
“I’ll get it, you never know what is good.” Boris smiled, wandering up to the counter and the rather disinterested looking Indian woman behind it, who began taking his order with a tired smile.   
  
Theo started for a moment; Kitsey had said something similar to him once, when he had picked their meal at some uppity restaurant that she enjoyed. With her it had more venom, but Boris had not seemed to mind too much. So Theo contented himself to stand back while Boris chatted with the woman and rattled off. He stood silently as part of him mourned the loss of heat against his side, until he processed just what Boris was saying and he jerked forward, startling both people at the counter.  
  
“No, sorry. We don’t need three Bombay Aloo.” He said, just as Boris barked a laugh, ringing harsh like an iron bell.

“Okay, sorry, only one.” Boris relented, and the woman rolls her eyes between them before shaking her head and disappearing through the curtained door into the back of the shop to prepare the order.   
  
“I have no fucking idea how you’re so skinny with the amount you eat.” Theo huffs, when the silence between them becomes tense. In truth, he realises only belatedly that he has no idea how much Boris eats. The man gorges when he’s with Theo, but that could only be when he feels safe - or, well, Theo doesn’t want to consider that train of thought any further. The thought that after all these years Boris would still consider Theo to be safe is jarring and incredible and causes his lips to twist at the corner so that he must suppress a smile.   
  
“Is the drugs.” Boris says, eyes squinting with the curve of his smirk, face suddenly soft. Then, he chuckles and flaps his hands in a dismissive wave. “It was only joke! I have a treadmill, running helps to clear my head.”  
  
Theo blinks for a moment, the thought of Boris owning a treadmill and using it for anything other than an expensive clothing rack was surreal to him. He could picture it if he tried hard; Boris, probably in some ridiculous Adidas tracksuit, skin flushed and hair drenched - god, would he have a headband?  
  
“I guess you need to keep in shape for all of that skiing you do with your hot wife.” Theo shrugs, allowing his tone to fall into the familiar draw of their teasing, like when they were younger and less barbed.  
  
“Bite me.” Boris laughs, without any venom and tone soft with his smile. It made it easier to stomach, when Boris was dismissive about his apparent mail order wife; if anything the disregard only enforced Theo's theory that she was the first stock photo woman Boris had stumbled across in his endeavour to fabricate a cover-up about Theo's mark on his mouth.   
  
The wait is surprisingly short, and within ten minutes the old woman totters back to the counter with a large brown bag that smells strongly of coconut and turmeric. Boris bundles the food into his arms, smiling broadly when the woman turns to them expectantly.   
  
“That will be forty-seven dollars.” She deadpans, staring expectantly at Boris, whose smile falters and drops into a grimace. Then, turning to Theo with his mouth sucked into a pout he shrugs.  
  
“I do not carry paper money.” He says and Theo has never wanted to throttle someone so much in his life.   
  
_"Fine. _” He hisses, reaching into his coat for his wallet, as Boris relays to the old woman about how forgetful Theo can be, especially after a long week at the office. She nods along softly as Theo hands her the money, withdrawing and placing a hand on Boris’ shoulder to steer him out of the building.   
  
“See you both again soon!” She calls, after a moment, and Theo struggles to squash down a bitter scoff.   
  
He very much doubts that she will.

\------

It is almost frightening, how easily they can fall into routine. No matter how long they spend apart; a day, a week, almost a decade, they still fall back together again, like slipping a plug into the socket. Within an hour they are curled on the settee together, Popchyk nestled between them and stacks of cartons of pungent smelling curry and rice and side dishes on the Burr coffee table. On the television some old horror film drones on, almost entirely ignored in favour of their conversation, stunted only when one of them takes a moment to eat.  
  
Eventually, the drink starts to flow, heavy and warm and ebbing away the tension until they are easy again. In the dim light of the television Boris is haloed with the stark light, brushed so softly that Theo feels his breath rasp in his throat.  
  
“Theo.” Boris begins, startling Theo, who was surprised to find that he was already looking at him. Boris must have noticed, watching him intently with his dark eyes narrowed and swimming with something almost soft enough to be pity. “Let me stay for a few days. Just one or two?”  
  
“I-” His heart stammers, his mouth is dry and his tongue feels like a wad of cotton, draining all of the rational thoughts out of his mind - “Okay.”  
  
Boris grins at him, a baring of teeth that Theo itches to sketch, to imprint to something, because it is brilliant and bold and it seems to be terribly unfair that this person should be lost to something as trivial as time.   
  
The rest of the night passes like that, sharing drinks and jokes and pretending to watch the film in front of them and instead watching one another out of the corner of their eyes; balking when they accidentally see the other looking and drumming their fingers against the neck of their glasses. During an extended silence in one of the films Boris takes the opportunity to drop a heavy hand on Theo’s shoulder, startling a shout out of him much to the disdain of Popper, who grumbles tiredly and trots away from the pair to settle into his own basket in the corner of the room.  
  
Rather than withdrawing, Boris’ hand splays against his shoulder, heavy and ticklish where the thumb rasps against the exposed skin of his neck, pressing against the juncture where the collar has been pulled down. Theo is intimately aware that the red mark against his hairline must be visible, and when he risks a furtive glance towards Boris he can see the man intently staring at him.   
  
When he leans in Theo struggles not to tense, and he must fail to some extent because Boris’ huffs a sigh that falls heavy and warm across his neck with a plume of hot air. The smell of him is almost encompassing this close, cardamon and whiskey, the sterile bite of the vodka and the spice of their food.   
  
Boris bows his head gently, rasping his lips against the back of Theo’s neck. Theo can feel his heart thundering against his throat like a mantra, the murmur of a drum, deafening inside his own head. Boris draws away after placing the brief kiss, exhaling softly, and the ghostly impression of the breath drawing a shudder out of Theo.   
  
“What-” Theo hisses, staring feebly ahead at the television that neither of them had been watching. “What are you doing?”  
  
“I am very sorry.” Boris whispers, something that Theo feels more than hears, and a hysterical trill runs through him at the realisation.   
  
“Sorry for what? Kissing my neck?” Theo asks, twisting in Boris’ grasp so that he can meet the man's eyes. It is jarring, how close they are, scarcely a space between them, enough that their noses would touch if one of them were to inch closer.   
  
“You are very bad at talking about important things, always changing subject to something stupid.” Boris tells him, voice steady and expression terribly fond. He raises the hand from Theo’s shoulder, fingers skirting against the sensitive flesh of his ear before the palm rests flat against his cheek, heavy and firm. He can feel the callouses, the rough groove of scar tissue against his jaw.   
  
Boris is handsome like this, Theo notices, and realises that he is not surprised to think it. Dressed down and expression gentle, dark eyes like crushed charcoal fluttering between his own to try and entice some response from him other than evasion or his pathetic floundering. The curve of his jaw soft as he smiles and rasps his thumb across Theo’s cheek.   
  
It was a surprise to the both of them, however, when Theo leaned forward to close the gap between them. His mouth is too dry and he only manages to catch the corner of Boris’ lips, who hums a chuckle that reverberates through Theo like the deafening rattle of that goddamn bomb. Then, Boris turns his face with the hand that is still holding his jaw and deepens the kiss with the glance of his mouth and the press of his tongue. He kisses like a man with a lot of experience, knowing far more than Theo had managed to learn. Boris was always the first, always the teacher, and it seemed oddly right that it would be Boris to teach him how to twist his tongue like that. It was unlike any kiss he had had before, Boris heavy against him but mouth wet and pliant, the rasp of their heavy breaths and the ache of his knuckles where they were clenched against his thighs.   
  
A gentle touch against his neck startles him, a touch far softer than anything Boris has even granted him, and then their mouths are apart and their breathing heavy and deafening in the living room. Theo reaches out without quite considering why, wrapping his palm around Boris’ forearm and squeezing - unsure whether it is a reassurance to himself or to Boris, unsure as to whether it is a plea to stay.   
  
“Bedroom?” Boris asks, lips stretched into a wry smile that Theo has not seen in a very long time. The expression that always heralded what Theo considered to be a Very Terrible Idea, and yet it was a look that Theo could never refuse.   
  
“Just tonight.” Theo decides, heart hammering in his throat, palm damp when he grabs Boris’ hand to pull him up from the sofa. With the vodka in his grasp and Boris threading his fingers with his other hand they make their way towards the bedroom in the back of his apartment. Theo has done worse things, he thinks, than let himself have something like this. Theo is not sure if he has done stupider things but, with his lips still tingling from the trace of the kiss and his stomach fluttering with nerves that he has not felt in years, he is not certain that he cares. 

\------

A few days became a week, which quickly evolved into a fortnight.   
  
They fell into a routine with surprising ease. Most days, Theo would head down to the workshop in the morning, meeting with a client on occasion in order to discuss a sale or, most likely, a re-purchase. Hobie was aware that Boris was staying with him, and judging by his unsubtle probing he was also very much aware that it was Boris’ mark on him. The old man was perhaps just too earnest when asking if Boris was well, asking what he was doing now, whether he was stable enough to be getting Theo involved again. All Theo could offer to each question was a helpless shrug and confirmation that he wouldn't just up and disappear again, wouldn't leave Hobie stranded with the business that Theo had made a mess of but was working tirelessly to fix.   
  
So, Theo worked like normal. Only now when he came home in the increasingly dark evenings Boris would be there, with something burning in the kitchen, candles lit in the living room. Sometimes Theo would catch him on the way back from walking Popper around the block, and they would return to the apartment together chatting about the people that Boris had bumped into or his dubiously legal job which involved sales and nothing else that he would specify.   
  
Theo decided that he would prefer not to know; at least he can honestly claim ignorance if the cops do fall down on him some day. He doesn’t consider it to be possible, though, Boris is one of those entirely untouchable people, like the god Baldr in his countless blessings, wreathed with light and laughter. And who is Theo but some innocent bystander who got swept up in his awe?   
  
“You can stay for Christmas, you know.” Theo says, into the darkness of their room. It was late on a Thursday evening, and the shadows on the ceiling above the bed curled like a smog as he stared up at them. Boris shuffled beside him, propping his head up on one hand so that he can stare at Theo. He is difficult to make out in the darkness, the dark cascade of his mussed hair and the hint of a frown. Theo quickly averts his gaze, unable to hold the intensity of his eyes. “If you want to.”  
  
Without warning Boris leans over to him, pressing the rasp of a kiss against his mouth and Theo leans into it silently. It is difficult with Boris, always unsure as to which will be the last. There is always a dread that comes with kissing him, a pin-prick pain against his heart.   
  
When they break away Boris brings their foreheads together, forcing Theo to meet the abyssal darkness of his eyes, tender and vulnerable in the night.   
  
It is like when they were in Vegas, whispering beneath the sheets, indulging in secrets they would never have dared in the light of day. Nighttime provides some indescribable security, bolstering confidence that allows you to do things you could never do by the light of day.   
  
“I would like that.” Boris tells him, expression open and raw.   
  
And for once Theo believes that he will stay. 


End file.
